Weaponized

Debrisphere polar hotzone, September 15 2047 September 16 2047

“Don’t be alarmed now pumpkin” A weathered, yet friendly voice whispered in her ear. “We are going to get you out of this predicament”.

A tiny glittering sphere materialized half a meter above her knees and hovered there. The sphere first appeared to be reflective, like a mirror, but when Gwen looked more closely she noticed it wasn’t reflecting the room she was in. It was as if the reflections she saw were displaced in space and she saw the distorted face and body of an old man. “Granddad?” Gwen exclaimed without thinking.

“Don’t speak now child, don’t make any noise unless doing so is in our strategic interest.”

The mirror-like sphere started hovering towards Gwen’s ankles. As Gwen looked past her own feet the noticed the New Zion agent that before had been strapped to a table just like she was, kneeling motionlessly on the floor next to an empty chair. What was he doing?
Then her attention jumped back to the sphere.The sphere was much bigger now and a small bump started forming on one side of the now about six or seven centimeter wide sphere. The sphere had grown a lot, the image of her granddad was blurry now and as the bump changed its color to black, slowly the jagged edge of a hunting knife started to emerge from the sphere.

As the blade cut the straps that were around her left ankle, Gwen looked it in total awe at the sphere that was now hovering towards her other leg. What technology was this? More mirrory spheres started materializing in the room. Two spheres collided for a short moment to then part with a piece of thin steel cable hanging loosely between the two spheres.

He was gone! As Gwen looked around the room, she noticed the New Zion agent had disappeared? Where was he? And what was granddad doing?

Other pairs of metallic spheres appeared and did the same the first pair had done. Tiny black sticks that Gwen recognized as pin cameras had emerged from the spheres, four or five dozen of paired up spheres started to frantically swarm the room.

Gwen started to get quite scared now. "Grand Dad!" Gwen shouted out in fear.

The mirror spheres were swarming increasingly fast through the room and the pairs of spheres were now so far apart that it was as if a swarm of humming swords was buzzing through the room at what seemed like uncontrollable speed.

“My God! Grandpa!”

Gwen called out in fear and hid behind the table that she had been strapped onto for she had no idea how long.

“Be still my champions little girl, everything is going to be fine, Grandpa is watching out for you.”.

Her granddad had only just spoken those soothing words when a large V-shaped piece of white painted metal about eighty centimeters in height and about four centimeters in diameter came hurling through the room, intercepting part of the swarm.

Out of nothing the new Zion agent seemed to have jumped onto the table that Gwen was hiding behind and took a huge leap towards the swarm, the arms of his coat tied to his belt at the sides of his body, holding the bottom of his coat in his stretched out arms like a net.

As the New Zion agent tried to tie up the captured spheres in his coat a new sphere formed. This one wasn’t all mirrory like the other ones. It was black. Blacker than the darkest night. A deeper black than Gwen had ever seen. As the sphere started growing towards him, the agent let go of his jacket and in an extremely agile way scaled the table Gwen was hiding behind and disappeared from Gwen’s sight.

When Gwen looked back at the place where the agent had taken on the spheres, the coat had disappeared completely into the black sphere that now had grown to a diameter of almost three meters and apparently expanded down into the floor. A terrible sound went through the ship, in one way almost like the sound of a whale, but in another way also like the sound of a whole room full of people trapped while the room is burning. A terrible sound followed almost instantly by an earthquake like sensation.

As Gwen stumbled to get up, a new mirrory sphere materialized about twenty centimeters from her belly. Again a small bump started forming on the sphere. This time at the bottom of the sphere. As Gwen held up her hand a keyring fell into her hand. Gwen looked around the room in astonishment. Grandpa Wietse’s strategy had finally become clear.

Everyone but her who was in the room had been tied up with thin metal cables and padlocks. The new Zion agent. The old man. And whatever these small grey humanoid creatures were that the New Zion agent had killed.

Grandpa wasn’t taking any chances on them being still alive. Even the young man that was still tied to his table with straps was also, in addition, tied up with metal cables and padlocks. Everyone tied up. Everyone and everything either dead or unconscious. “It is YOUR ship now!” the somewhat agitated voice of her grandfather spoke, “You are in control now my sweet granddaughter.”.

Gwen didn’t feel in control though. As Gwen started to make her way to what seemed like the only passage out of the room when another earthquake like a shock went through the ship. She stumbled but didn’t fall. The other room was small and looked like it was a sleeping quarter for the grey humanoids. One humanoid was laying in one of the coves. Tied up like all the others but this one was clearly breathing; alive.

Then panic struck Gwen. These two were the only rooms in the ship! No other passages, nothing resembling a door or even a window. No way out! Also no sign of a ship control system anywhere. “Grandpa!, there is nothing for me to control here! No way out of this room, no control panels or steering system, nothing!”.

As Gwen looked back into the larger of the two rooms the noticed something off about the large black sphere. It was pulsing. Shrinking to half it’s size going from pitch black while large, to a mirror-like view on Granddad’s laboratory while smaller, back to large and black. Pulsing like a slow heartbeat. Every time the sphere expanded coinciding with that horrible sound and those tremors.

Something was wrong. The ship! It was alive. The sphere was hurting it. Something was wrong with this sphere, very wrong.

“Wait just one second, I think I’ve got this, I’m going to get you out of there.” Grand-dad's voice was trembling, confirming Gwen's gut feeling that something wasn't quite right.

The sphere went back to a hovering silverish ball the size of a soccer ball showing the deformed image of Wietse’s makeshift lab.

“Ok, I’ve got this now, I’ll have you out in a sec, let me just reverse polarity…. No, no no no, damn.”.

The sound of Wietse’s voice suddenly changed into a sharp static followed by silence. Looking at the sphere Gwen saw Wietse’s face display horror and confusion.
Then the sphere turned green; plants; a forest of some sorts, but no plants like Gwen had ever seen. Then black, but not the scary deep dark black she had seen earlier, no it was the image of a starry sky. As the sphere started acting as a television set switching channels.

The size of the sphere started to increase again. Gwen took a step back, then another, as the pulsing sphere seemed about to engulf half of the room and outside of it both reaching out into the floor and into the ceiling, an agonizing sound like the ones she heard before but so much more heart-piercing than the times before.

Then Gwen felt herself being slung through the air in the direction of the sphere, the sphere though moving with her in the same direction, disappearing into the wall and while doing so changing the high pitched almost whale-like sounds into something more akin to the high pitched screeching of a wild boar being slaughtered.

The sphere was gone now, but the wall wasn’t and was coming towards her at a high speed. This wasn’t going to end well. This wasn’t going to end well at all.

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Cover art by Keith Draws